<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Only The Good Die Young by moonshine623</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996361">Only The Good Die Young</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonshine623/pseuds/moonshine623'>moonshine623</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Complete, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending?, M/M, Marauders, Post-Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Sad and Happy, but they're all happy in the afterlife in the end, dorlene, i'm sorry this is kind of sad, jily, wolfstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:14:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonshine623/pseuds/moonshine623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marlene, Dorcas, Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus' deaths. What happened after.</p><p>And what happened when they all were able to meet again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Marlene McKinnon - 28th July 1981</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a cackle of laughter. A flash of green light. An unimaginable, but brief, burst of pain. Barely long enough to last a breath.</p><p>And then, nothing.</p><p>No, not nothing. There was a soft blackness, an enveloping dark. Marlene thought it breathed. She tried to look around before she realised she couldn't move, couldn't look down, couldn't even see the well-freckled bridge of her own nose that she was so familiar with.</p><p>An undeniable sense of panic overtook her. Where was everyone? Where was <em>she</em>? It was fairly clear that she was dead. She was dead, and so was her whole family.</p><p>
  <em>Dorcas.</em>
</p><p>Dorcas wasn't dead. No, she'd gone out on a mission that night, she'd gone and left Marlene behind to look after her ailing mother. She was safe. She was safe.</p><p>"No goodbyes," Dorcas had murmured when they'd stood at the threshold of the door, Dorcas dressed in a thick black cloak, curly hair tied back at the nape of her neck. "No more words. I'll see you in the morning, love."</p><p>Marlene had tucked her nose into her fiancee's neck, trying to breathe her scent in. "Don't go dying on me, now."</p><p>Dorcas had smirked, the crooked smile Marlene had fallen in love with. "I'll do my best, McKinnon." And then she leaned in, and they shared a short, sweet kiss. Their last kiss, Marlene now realised. She'd been so prepared for <em>Dorcas</em> to be the one to leave her tonight, she hadn't even considered it might be her own last few hours.</p><p>Slowly, sounds and light began to filter into Marlene. Her vision tunnelled, colour bleeding into the edges of her view. She could feel herself again, her feet and then hands and face and heart and <em>oh, it hurt.</em> Marlene McKinnon was dead. She'd never be alive again, never get to marry the love of her life, never be able to raise children and laugh with her friends and <em>live</em>.</p><p>Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings. Marlene was in a room, complete with a bed and stone floors and light beaming in through an open window. She blinked, slowly. Marlene didn't know how being dead worked, didn't know if she'd be able to see people or if she was in some sort of limbo or if there was a heaven or hell, even. Her gaze fell upon a ceiling-to-floor length mirror covering one wall, and she peered into it.</p><p>The image distorted, shapes shifting and blurring until she could see people. <em>Dorcas</em>, she thought almost unconsciously, and then there was more blurs and she could see her fiancee. In tears. Bent over her own dead body, screaming curses at the Dark Mark still hovering in the sky above their home. Nausea roiled in Marlene, so vicious and sudden she wasn't sure whether she even was dead.</p><p>She was dreadfully torn, half of her desperately wanting Dorcas to join her in this place-that-was-not-a-place, the other half wanting her love to live a long, happy life, growing old and being content. A exhaled sob ripped its way out of Marlene's chest. <em>You can be selfless, Marlene,</em> she told herself. <em>Dorcas deserves to live.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Dorcas Meadowes - 15th August 1981</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last thing she saw was Voldemort's pale, flat face, impersonal in its fervour. Hatred. Cold, but in the way a wall was cold, not ice. Dorcas realised, in the fleeting moments before her death, that she meant nothing to him. He didn't even know who she was, why she had hunted him down in this way. The Dark Lord did not care. And as life was ripped away from her, Dorcas felt relief, because if anything that resembled mercy existed in their world (and she was beginning to doubt it) then she would be with Marlene again. And that was all that mattered.</p><p>There was darkness, cool and warm at the same time, comforting and enveloping. Dimly, Dorcas wondered whether it felt like this for everyone, if there was an inherent sense of morality that Death possessed that dealt people retribution for what they'd done in life. And then she wasn't wondering anymore, because light bled into her vision and she was standing in a room, white curtains fluttering in a phantom breeze, and there.</p><p>She was there.</p><p>A choked sob pushed its way out of Dorcas' lungs as she propelled herself forward and into Marlene's arms, and they were both crying, and then Marlene's fingers were in her hair and had it really only been a little over a fortnight. "Marlene," she gasped, "Marlene, Marlene, Marlene." She could feel the love of her life in her arms, and though it wasn't the same here as it had been in life, seeing Marlene here like this after it had seemed impossible was a miracle.</p><p>"What are you doing here," Marlene's voice was muffled where she had buried her head in Dorcas' curls. "I thought I told you not to die on me?"</p><p>Dorcas laughed, but it came out as more of a slurp. "You died on me first, you know."</p><p>"Semantics," Marlene said, and then Dorcas lifted her chin, and then they were kissing and the relief that flooded Dorcas' heart threatened to overwhelm her.</p><p>"I love you," she said in a rush, "I love you so much, you idiot. Why'd you have to go and die?"</p><p>"This may be the wrong thing to say," Marlene said, a small smile tilting her mouth, "but I'm so glad you're here. I don't know what I'd've done without you, honestly."</p><p>Something solidified in the pit of Dorcas' stomach. "We were supposed to have forever, love. We didn't get our forever."</p><p>"No, we didn't," Marlene agreed. "But we have each other. Better than nothing."</p><p>"Marginally, I'd say," Dorcas breathed, and then they were kissing again, and maybe in this place, they did have forever. And that was better than nothing, because Marlene was in her arms, and when she was, everything seemed all right.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. James Potter - 31st October 1981</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>"Lily, take Harry and go!"</em> James roared as if his life depended on it, because theirs did. His fingers closed uselessly, grasping for his wand that wasn't there because he'd left it by the bed. He was finished, he knew it. There were no more tricks, no more escapes, no more narrow misses. James Potter was going to die.</p><p>The slow, ominous footsteps echoed down the hall of their little cottage, the flickering shadows from the still-burning fireplace casting a gloom over the scene. The fireplace, where not two hours ago he had been sitting with his wife and his best friend and his son, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the war would be over before any more people were lost.</p><p>But Peter had betrayed them. James hadn't still processed that fact, and he doubted that he'd have the time to.</p><p>Time. They were supposed to have time. They were supposed to have endless Sundays filled with strawberry pancakes and sticky syrup, sleepy kisses and hugs of comfort. He was supposed to see Harry grow up, give him siblings, send him off to Hogwarts where he would carry on the Marauders' pranking legacy. He was supposed to grow old with the love of his life by his side, with greying hair and a full house of kids and grandkids, hearts peaceful and content. They were supposed to have forever.</p><p>The figure appeared at the end of the corridor, and all James could hear were Lily's frantic footsteps upstairs and Harry's wailing. <em>Please, not them,</em> he begged whatever fates there may have been, and squared his shoulders. James had had a happy life, and he was going to go down fighting.</p><p>"<em>Avada Kedavra</em>," Voldemort spat, and there was a horrid flash of green light and that was that. Blackness. Nothing.</p><p>And then he was in a room, full of pillows with worn wooden floors and an old wooden clock that seemed to be stuck on six o'clock. A large mirror which James rushed to almost immediately, knowing somehow that it would show him his family. And there she was. There they were.</p><p>
  <em>Please, give them time. Let them get out. Let them be all right.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Lily Evans Potter - 31st October 1981</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She heard the thump downstairs. <em>No. Please. Not James.</em> It couldn't be. Silently, she pleaded with the fates that James' voice would call, 'got him!'. But footsteps approached, and they were not her husband's quick, sure ones. These dragged, long and slow and laborious, and Lily didn't even have time to process that the love of her life was dead, because now he was coming, and Harry was bawling in her arms.</p><p><em>Not Harry. Please not Harry.</em> Her son, who she'd barely gotten a year with - her son, who was supposed to <em>live</em>. Who <em>deserved</em> to live.</p><p>"Not<em> Harry!</em> Please — I'll do anything!"</p><p>But of course, there was no point in pleading with the Dark Lord. A blast of green light, and then blackness. Panic flooded Lily. <em>Harry. Harry. He has to be all right. Harry.</em></p><p>She found herself dissipating, and then a new fear struck her, because she would never get to know what happened, never get to see James again. But then light blurred her vision, and there he was, standing glued to a mirror. A mirror that was showing Harry's nursery, their son crying in the crib, Voldemort hovering over him.</p><p>"James," she cried, and he ran to her and she collapsed in his arms. "He's going to be all right, isn't he? He has to be all right."</p><p>"I'm sorry, love," he exhaled. "We shouldn't have trusted Peter. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."</p><p>Lily was about to reply when there was a flash, and she ran to the mirror, ready to tear her hair out and wail. Their son couldn't be dead. Harry couldn't die.</p><p>But it wasn't the baby who went limp in his crib, but Voldemort, his body slumping to the ground, Harry's screams getting louder. Lily stared at the scene, the surrealness of her own body lying on the ground beside the famed Dark Lord's. And her son, snotty and alone but very much alive.</p><p>Beside her, James' fingers tightened around her own. "He's alive," James breathed, his voice filled with wonder. "Harry's alive."</p><p>"Who's going to get him?" Lily asked, her mind as usual jumping leagues ahead. "Sirius and Remus, right?"</p><p>"Of course," James said, still staring at the mirror.</p>
<hr/><p>"HOW DARE THEY?" Lily screamed, chucking a pillow at the glass as James, Dorcas, and Marlene stared on nervously. Somehow, they'd found a way to meet again, in the strange labyrinth that was this place-that-was-not-a-place. "HE'S INNOCENT, YOU BASTARDS, IT'S PETTIGREW, THAT RATTY GIT!"</p><p>Sirius was not helping his case. He slouched there with a wide, manic grin on his face, laughing hysterically. "Sirius, come on, mate," James groaned, "help yourself."</p><p>"That's my child's <em>godfather</em>, you can't give him to Petunia-"</p><p>"Lily," her best friend said firmly, grabbing her wrists and pulling her down, "it's out of your control. Harry will survive, you know he will."</p><p>"Sirius. Doesn't. Deserve. Azkaban," Dorcas stated firmly, her eyes still glued to the mirror.</p><p>"Of course he doesn't," Marlene sighed, slumping. She turned to James. "You know we'd have been your Secret Keepers, right?"</p><p>James dropped his head into his lap. "I know. But I trusted Peter. I'm sorry."</p><p>"Oh, he's getting <em>hell</em> when he gets here," Lily seethed, "assuming he even gets here at all. If I find out that we all get sent to the same place, nothing on this earth-"</p><p>"-technically, we're not on earth-"</p><p>"-will stop me from knocking his lights out," Lily continued, ignoring her best friend. "And I mean that."</p><p>"We'll join you," James confirmed, clenching his teeth. "I promise."</p><p>Marlene and Dorcas just held out their pinkies, and Lily linked them as the guards dragged Sirius away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Sirius Black - 18th June 1996</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last thing Sirius saw was Harry's face. And Remus, right behind him, both frozen in shock, the smile slowly melting off. And then Sirius was falling, falling through the veil that felt dimly like wet condensation that somehow burned at the same time, and he hated falling, because no one was going to catch him.</p><p>But then someone did.</p><p>Two warm, familiar hands landed on his shoulders. Achingly familiar. So familiar, those years in Azkaban had almost erased them.</p><p>But not quite.</p><p>"Fancy seeing you here," a warm voice said, and Sirius stumbled to his feet and turned around, and there he was, glasses still askew, hair still untamed, smirk still firmly in place, looking exactly as they did when they were twenty-one.</p><p>"I'm sorry for everything," was the first thing out of Sirius' mouth as he fell into his best friend's arms for the first time in fifteen years. "Merlin, James, I'm so sorry."</p><p>"Whatever <em>are</em> you sorry for," another voice sounded from behind him, and there was Lily, long red hair gleaming, and behind her Marlene and Dorcas, warm grins on their faces, and then he started crying in earnest.</p><p>They sandwiched him in a hug, and he spent several minutes collecting himself, feeling the warmth of people who he knew truly loved him, and who he loved back. "I missed you so much."</p><p>"Yeah, a decade and a half's a while, eh?" James joked, punching his friend's shoulder lightly. "Shame you got old."</p><p>"Shame you didn't," Sirius responded automatically, though looking down at himself and then James, he noticed irregularities. "Hold on a mo', there's no way you were that tall."</p><p>"I was," James grinned, but then Marlene pushed him.</p><p>"No, he wasn't. He just figured out that he could change his appearance and was having a field day. Lily only just convinced him to stop going around looking like John Lennon."</p><p>"Oi, the long hair looked good on me, plus I've already got the glasses," James protested. "The trick here, mate, is to imagine yourself looking like what you want."</p><p>Sirius did, squeezing his eyes shut and did as he said, picturing himself at his prime, twenty-one going on twenty-two. And then something shifted, and his back straightened, and he no longer felt old and sore and stretched out too thin.</p><p>"There he is," Dorcas grinned. "The smoking hot goth we know and love."</p><p>"Oi, I grew out of my goth phase when I was seventeen," Sirius insisted, and the others immediately started in a cacophony of arguments which Sirius melted into seamlessly. Looking around at his friends, his heart ached. He had missed them so much, for those twelve long years rotting in the jail cell and the miserable ones spent in his childhood house after, the only moments of brightness being the ones snatched with Remus.</p><p>Remus. Sirius wanted him desperately, wanted him to complete the group's dynamic and make his little jokes and tell them, 'actually, Sirius was quite dashing in his early twenties, I'd know, I'm the one who snogged the brains out of him whenever you lot weren't around,' but he couldn't, because Remus was going to live a long, happy life. Sirius would make sure of it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Remus Lupin - 2nd May 1998</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Remus looked at Dora, the woman he'd agreed to marry.</p><p>The discussion they'd had after Sirius' death had been almost too much to handle. They'd grown closer during those months in Grimmauld Place, trying to balance shifts so Sirius was never shut up alone in that house.</p><p>And after his death, she'd proposed a marriage. A companionship, seeing as they'd both lost the loves of their lives in the war.</p><p>"We should get married," she had told him, tears still clinging to her lashes. Her hair was grey today, her face lined with worry and grief.</p><p>Remus almost didn't understand her words around the gaping hole in his chest. It hurt so badly that he almost couldn't believe there wasn't an actual wound marring his flesh. This was 1981 all over again, but infinitely worse, because Sirius was really gone this time. "What?"</p><p>"We should get-"</p><p>"Wrong team, and definitely wrong timing, Tonks," he choked out.</p><p>"Oh, I know that," she waved him off. "But we've both lost... our person."</p><p>A beat of silence. "You-"</p><p>"Oh yes," Tonks almost laughed, though it was a hollow, broken sound. "She was killed in an attack on Gringotts. Two years ago."</p><p>Remus didn't say anything. What was there to say?</p><p>"We're friends, Rem," she continued. "And we're going to need companionship."</p><p>"I'm not going to make it out of this war alive," Remus said suddenly, still staring at the floor. "They all left me. All of them."</p><p>"<em>Remus</em>," she pressed, "I'm offering you this. Friendship. A legacy. Children, even. Something to outlive us."</p><p>Slowly, he turned his gaze onto her. "A legacy."</p><p>"A legacy."</p><p>And that was that. There was never romance, never anything beyond platonic love. He did love her. And he would die for her without a doubt. Die for her and for his son.</p><p>And he did. As Dolohov stood in front of him, Remus knew with absolute certainty that his life was finally over. He was finally free.</p>
<hr/><p>The first person he saw was Marlene. Marlene, who he hadn't seen in seventeen years. "Marls."</p><p>She was blinking, and crying, and he ran and fell into her arms, and there was Dorcas, standing next to her, and rubbing his back. And then someone said, "I could have sworn we were invited to the party," and that was <em>Lily</em>, his <em>friend</em>, and then he was properly sobbing.</p><p>"Hiya, mate," James said gently, and Remus could have sworn that he'd been taller than his friend, but he was too happy to care.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Remus choked, "I couldn't protect him. I let him rot in that woman's house-"</p><p>"You did everything just right, Moony," Lily said gently, placing her hand over his, looking as though she hadn't aged a day since Halloween, 1981. "We won, didn't we?"</p><p>Emotion pulsed through Remus in waves. First shock, then overwhelming, crippling relief. "We... we won? He did it?"</p><p>A corner of Dorcas' mouth lifted. "We really won. Imagine that, huh? Seventeen years after we died?"</p><p>"Worst seventeen years of my life," Remus quipped, gazing around at the people he loved most in the world. "Merlin, I missed you lot so, so much."</p><p>"We missed you too, Rem," Marlene said, as James burst in "We saw what you did-"</p><p>"All right, all right, give the man some space," Dorcas chuckled, waving them off.</p><p>Remus was still looking around at them when fear froze his heart. "Wait. Where's-"</p><p>"The guest of honour has arrived," Sirius said, a fond, tender smile on his face. "Well, well. Way to show up fashionably late, Moony."</p><p>Remus' knees went weak as he took in the sight of the love of his life, restored back to perfect health, looking exactly as he did before they locked him up in that terrible place. "<em>Sirius.</em>"</p><p>Sirius grinned. "Miss me?"</p><p>And then Remus was laughing and crying as he launched himself towards Sirius, and then they were kissing and everything was right, everything fit, and everything was perfect again.</p>
<hr/><p>Settling in was harder than expected.</p><p>Remus found that everything was essentially manipulated by the mind, like one's appearance (he'd reverted to twenty and tried erasing his scars before all his friends protested) and the general structure. Time didn't pass the same here, and the aching hunger that had consumed most of Remus' life for a <em>purpose</em>, and for <em>more</em>, had essentially vanished. It was not the same as being alive, but it was a good deal better than what he'd imagined.</p><p>"When d'you think Mary's going to join us?" Dorcas asked idly one day, sitting with her head on Marlene's knees.</p><p>"Dunno," Lily commented, "she's got a husband and kids, hasn't she? Hopefully not for another thirty years, at least."</p><p>Remus glanced fondly at the mirror, which was now showing Harry playing with Teddy on the Weasleys' carpet. It would take some time for it all to be all right again, for everyone to heal and for all of them up here to lull into a semblance of life.</p><p>But looking at his best friends in the world now, with the love of his life curled up against his side, Remus felt a delicious contentment deep in his soul. Everything was all right, here in this place-that-was-not-a-place, because he had them, and they were happy.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>